I’ve been feeling really out of it lately, out of touch with reality, out of touch with myself. There was a part in Haunting of Bly Manor that just pulled at my heart strings so hard because “I FELT THAT.” Spoiler, skip to next paragraph if you haven’t watched it: When Theo just breaks down crying saying she couldn’t feel ANYTHING at all, like a pit of nothing… I felt that. I cried and my throat got tight because that’s what I feel (or don’t feel) most days.
It’s true what they say - when you become a mom, a lot of the focus turns onto the baby. Everyone wants to know how the baby is doing, but rarely do they ever ask how you’re doing. Unless they’re a mom too, and they know exactly what it’s like to be in your predicament. It’s hard to not feel like you’re being forgotten or feel less cared about. That’s why it’s so important to find something that makes you feel you again. And taking photos or being in photos does that for me.
I’m not the best at taking photos. I’m still learning. Most of the time it was me in front of the camera, but now I’ve found some comfort being behind the camera. And lately, that’s what I’ve been doing with my friends. I’ve been taking their photos and trying to make art, and make them feel beautiful. It reminds me that there’s more to me than just being “Maverick’s momma.” I’m me. I had hobbies before him and there’s no reason why I shouldn’t keep working at them.
It’s been really fun shooting, editing, and then seeing their reaction to how their photos turned out. It makes me really happy to know that I could capture that for them, their beauty, the beauty they’re unaware of sometimes. I hope that in the future, I have more time to learn about photography, but for now, it’s just for fun. It’s for us. It’s for me - to remember there’s more to me than just being a mom. I am still creative.